


strange bedfellows

by spookykingdomstarlight



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Alternate Universe - Role Reversal, Attraction, Character Study, Dark Side Finn, Finn-centric, Finnlo Appreciation Week, Force-Sensitive Finn, Gray Jedi, Implied Off-Screen Character Death, Jedi Ben Solo, Knight of Ren Finn, M/M, Playing Loose with Established Worldbuilding, Pre-Slash, Unresolved Tension
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-16
Updated: 2016-08-16
Packaged: 2018-08-09 06:09:12
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,029
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7789645
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/spookykingdomstarlight/pseuds/spookykingdomstarlight
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><i>“Alas, the storm is come again! My best way is to creep under his gaberdine. There is no other shelter hereabouts. Misery acquaints a man with strange bedfellows. I will here shroud till the dregs of the storm be past.”</i> - <i>The Tempest</i>, Act II, Scene II</p>
            </blockquote>





	strange bedfellows

**Author's Note:**

> Written for [Finnlo Appreciation Week](http://finnlofantastic.tumblr.com/post/148640237265/finnlo-week-schedule) over on tumblr as well as the [Season of Finn Fanworks Challenge](http://starwarsfruitbowl.dreamwidth.org/37991.html) going on over at the [Star Wars Fruitbowl comm](http://starwarsfruitbowl.dreamwidth.org/) in which participants are invited to create and share Finn-centric fanworks.
> 
> Additionally, I'm sorry for every stylistic decision I made when I thought this thing was only going to be a thousand words.

The others carry helmets, black and silver monstrosities—for intimidation, his mind supplies, and for strength—despite his having found simplicity the key to fear. But though he dislikes the pageantry, his own is made of chromium, dull and dented and curved gently into shape, a charred line melted across the front at the tilted angle where his lightsaber had cut nearly through it during a confrontation gone… bad. The face is little more than the reminder of that day and bears no holes for the eyes. Not even a viewscreen is mounted on the inside.

Vision, he has found, bears false witness to the truth.

Through the Force, he sees all things.

And he does not like what he sees.

-

At his ascension, he’d chosen no name.

-

After a time, the Knights forget his origins. They forget his face. This is purposeful, a careful application of techniques more often associated with the Light—and so deemed unworthy of study by them. Even the Supreme Leader ignores the obscurity from which his greatest achievement had been plucked. That, also, is purposeful, though to whose purpose, he couldn’t say except that it serves both him and, apparently, the Supreme Leader to allow the fiction to stand. Snoke is devious, but he is subtle, and unlike Snoke, he only denies what he was made to be, not where he came from. But he has never, and will never, complain about that. It has only made it easier to undermine Snoke’s hold on him.

That is, he understands, the way of things. Or it used to be. Every tale he’s ever heard about practitioners of the Dark Side ends in betrayal.

Who is he to do any less?

-

When he abandons Starkiller Base, he takes a piece of it with him. They should all have known better than to try the same stunt for a third time anyway.

And if he takes a vicious pleasure in undermining Hux’s pet project along the way, there are no Knights left on the base to admit it to.

He spaces the helmet and robes that had marked him as a one of _them_ as soon as he leaves Starkiller’s home system. Trades them out for the nondescript clothing of traders and pirates the galaxy over. Dumps the first, second, and third starship he commandeers.

The lightsaber stays at his side though. There’s no way in the twelve hells of Davaroi he’d let that thing go.

-

He meets a Jedi on a worthless desert planet. Rather, he _feels_ a Jedi on a worthless desert planet and goes to investigate. Later, he will be unable to construct a good reason for doing so and might well turn his anger upon himself. Regardless, it is a pointless distinction. The Jedi splits the difference and finds him at the halfway mark: a sand-blasted cantina in the middle of nowhere. Perhaps the Jedi would have found him anyway, crossed even more of this hateful place, if he hadn’t come. Now neither of them will ever know.

He lifts his hand to signal the bartender, giving the galaxy-wide indication of ‘another’ and ‘one for my friend, too,’ and waits for his guest to cross the length of the bar to reach him. His legs, long and clad in functional tan, make quick work of the distance. And when he sits, his eyes are shuttered in a way his aura is not.

The Jedi is searing bright in the Force and he’s not sure whether he hates the Jedi for that or not.

“You got a name?” he asks, probing at the ripples in the Force around them for cracks or strains or anything that might indicate a weakness in the man across from him. Why he cares, he can’t say. He’s reasonably sure he won’t have to fight his way out of here today so his caution may be both misplaced and zealous.

Though he will fight if he has to. And he will win.

“Ben,” the Jedi offers, no hint of malice or intent in his voice. Curiosity plucks through the Force, but nothing more harmful than that. He is certain the same cannot be said in reverse. He learned long ago to mask his own presence. Thinking about it, he wonders if that’s what drew Ben to him in the first place.

He’ll have to remember that. From everything he’s heard, the Jedi have begun to rebuild. Apparently hiding one’s presence in the Force is grounds enough for attention from them. Snoke hadn’t thought to teach him that. It seems like the sort of oversight that’s not accidental.

Or maybe he’s just grown paranoid, the possibility of discovery a heat across the back of his neck that not even the sun of Jakku can touch.

“Why are you here?” he asks, leaning forward, elbow braced against the edge of the table. His gaze is intense, searching. It’s cowed more than its fair share of First Order personnel in its time. Ben doesn’t so much as twitch.

Ben instead tilts his head, the hair not long enough to remain tied back falling into his eyes, which briefly drift toward the table between them. “You’re searching for something.” Here, Ben leans forward, too, lifts his gaze. “As am I.”

He snorts, the assertion an amusing one. There’s nothing to find here. That’s the point as far as he’s concerned. “You have no idea why I’m here.” _But thank you for telling me what_ you’re _up to_.

Ben smiles, lopsided. Charming despite the staid way he carries himself, the plainness of his appearance. “My mistake.”

Ben’s skin, he notes, is a little scorched from the sun, pink across his nose, cheeks, and forehead. So he can’t have been here long. Coincidence? Or something else?

Their drinks arrive while he ponders the answer. Just shy of tepid, they’re hardly worth the credits he offers the bartender for them. Meanwhile, Ben nods and thanks the man and sips from the probably dirty glass, near enough to content with it to pass as such. A muscle twitches in his jaw though and his lips thin when he swallows and a flash of _something_ sharpens his attention. Perhaps not so staid, this one.

There’s temptation in the quiet way Ben expresses his displeasure, so different from the raging tantrums of his fellow Knights, from the heated tempers of First Order officers. He himself has fallen victim to the impulse—and has regretted it, having neither solved his problem nor expunged himself of the anger that resulted. Pointless. Inefficient.

He so hates inefficiency.

“Are you with the Resistance?” he asks, voice lowered. This isn’t a First Order world. Not even one that is so much as sympathetic to their cause, but it’s always worthwhile to show care. Though he senses no duplicity in Ben or anyone else in this cantina—a rare thing indeed given the kind of people who frequent run-down places of this sort—he can concede the possibility of it.

“It’s complicated.” Ben shakes his head, his chin wrinkling as his mouth takes on a frowning, pouting quality. He must think it costs him nothing to be truthful in the face of a dangerous question or he merely doesn’t care. Either way, he envies Ben that. And he wonders what Ben sees in him that invites that sort of honesty.

_You shouldn’t be able to see anything at all_.

For the first time since he’d rid himself of the mantle of Knight, he wishes he’d kept the helmet at least. Maybe it would have done him some good.

“So complicated you can’t get information to them?” he asks, feigning disinterest. “Or complicated because your mother’s the Resistance leader?”

It’s a guess based on the barest scraps of rumors that had trickled through First Order intelligence and landed in his hands. But it makes sense and from the stricken flare of anger, distrust, _pain_ he senses, his aim is true. His instinct, good. And then it shutters, that pain and distrust and anger. Violently. There’s a story there and he finds he’d like to hear it, figures it’s got to be good.

But there’s no time.

He’s lingered too long here. That much is certain. There’s too much he still must learn. Ben’s just made him realize it. So he fishes a datacard from his vest, the corner catching on the pocket as he tugs, the Force guiding this decision and his hand both. When he frees it and lets it fall to the table, it clatters wildly before settling. He’s been sitting on its potential so long, he’s a little lost throwing it into the open. His fingers itch to take it back.

He doesn’t. “She might be interested in that.”

Getting to his feet, he reaches for his own drink, forgotten all this time, and swallows as much of it as he can stomach. Which isn’t much. Warm and sour, he wishes he hadn’t drunk it at all.

“Who are you?” Ben asks, peering up at him. This isn’t the only question on his tongue, he can see that much, but it’s the one Ben gives voice to.

He doesn’t relish denying Ben. He doesn’t. “Enjoy Jakku, Jedi,” he says, clapping Ben on the shoulder, fingernails digging into the muscles of his shoulder. Ben doesn’t flinch, doesn’t even move. A statue might have been more pliable. “And I’d prefer it if you didn’t follow me.” He bends close. “And some friendly advice? Stay away from Niima Outpost. It’s a junkyard.”

Ben nods, thoughtful, as though everything he says is useful to him. “Will you give me your name at least?”

“Oh, Jedi,” he replies, laughing. Genuinely amused for the first time in who knows how long. “That’s the last thing I’ll ever tell you.”

-

Keeping a low profile is his least favorite part of being on the run, but he does it with an almost religious fervor anyway. There will be no slip ups. His plans are solid, as secure as one man with limited resources can get them. They take time. He ensures he draws no notice.

-

He starts with Coruscant. Imperial Center. Because it’s the easiest and the most obvious and frankly, he finds the whole place underwhelming and would rather get it out of the way. He’s never felt about the Emperor the way some of the other Knights do—so loyal to his ideas, so… enamored of his protégé. _Ben’s grandfather,_ his mind supplies unbidden. The scandal of Leia Organa’s origins, short-lived though it may have been in most of the galaxy, had permeated the Knights’ conversations for weeks, a month, two months longer. So long he might well have snapped if even one more person saw fit to discuss it in his vicinity just one more time. But.

_But._

He can’t deny there must’ve been something to the Emperor’s power. And even the tales of Darth Vader’s unique and antiquated abilities imply a good deal more than Snoke had ever given him. “There is nothing there,” Snoke had said, dismissive, with a fair bit of certainty that he’d trusted at the time.

Now… now he has nothing to lose in looking around.

There is evidence of Coruscant’s riotous history everywhere. Tumbled sections of the city leave behind deep, geologic-scale scars in the landscape. The WeatherNet and atmospheric scrubbers can barely keep up as a result, casting a strange hue of sickly gray-green across the sky, a perpetual twilight that leaves him feeling uneasy, like he’s stepping onto ground consecrated in evil.

Still, Coruscant’s ruin is his gain.

The city planet’s traffic veers away from his destination. The Imperial Palace. The old Jedi Temple. People keep a safe distance. Even Coruscant’s security bureau stays away.

No one is there to notice when he breaks access after lock after safeguard, slipping into the place as easily as a ghost might. And, too, the ghosts of past ages linger here. No wonder no one comes to this place. It chills and warms him both to step into its halls, millennia of impressions pressing down on him, malevolent and not.

He finds nothing though he scours every terminal he comes across. He could turn this into his personal sanctuary and probably still not conduct a thorough survey of the place.

A noise. And his hand reaching impulsively for the lightsaber holstered in his vest.

A presence in the Force. Rather, an absence. A conspicuous absence.

They’ve found him. One of them has anyway. A Knight of Ren.

He forces his hand to settle at his hip where he keeps his blaster. They’d sniffed, the other Knights, every time he’d taken one down to the shooting range. Uncivilized, they’d called it. Unnecessary.

Arrogant, he’d retorted. Foolish. He’s reasonably sure he can get an accurate shot off before any one of them could draw their lightsaber and block it. But they are unable to do the reverse.

_Thud. Thud_. The scrape of boots against smooth, black marble.

A man. A tall man. In tan and brown. Hands raised. Coming out of the shadows. “You’ve gotten better,” Ben says. “I couldn’t even tell you were here until I saw what you were doing with the terminals.”

He’s always suspected the Force has a sense of humor. A terrible one at that. Nothing would ever have turned out the way it has if it didn’t.

He opens his mouth to reply—to, if he’s honest, _insult_ Ben in return. But that would require admitting to Ben that he knows what he’s doing and he knows what Ben’s doing. And he’s not ready to concede that yet. Or ever. He just wants to get on with his life, protect himself, figure out how best to use this power he has. “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he says, disingenuous.

“Sure,” Ben says, agreeable. “That happens from time to time.”

He fights the urge to roll his eyes. No, it doesn’t. Seems to him, people with Force sensitivity get plucked from their childhoods to be molded into something else—something greater if Snoke is to be believed. They don’t slip through the cracks.

Perhaps that is Luke Skywalker’s justification, too. He’d ask Ben his opinion, but again: discretion. Some punk with maybe a touch of the Force about him wouldn’t be interested in the ethics of training children from birth to be warriors. “I’m just here to score a deal,” he says. “Make some money selling old Imperial records.”

“Those are valuable, I hear.”

They’re not, but he doesn’t correct Ben. Besides, it doesn’t require Force sensitivity to realize the man’s mocking him. Not very Jedi-like at all. And not worthy of a response. Not that that stops him from making one. “That’s cute,” he says. “Truly.”

The corner of Ben’s mouth twitches, more appealing than he’d care to admit. He shoves down the warmth settling in his stomach. Fills his veins with as much chilly focus as he can muster. Then, Ben speaks, “Thank you.”

Annoyance bursts to life inside his chest. _Cut to the chase_. “Are you gonna let me go or not?”

Ben shrugs. “Should I not?”

_No. Yes. I don’t know_. “You tell me,” he says. When he backs up a step, Ben doesn’t follow. Ben also doesn’t answer, not until he’s halfway down the corridor.

“You’re lonely,” Ben says instead, his voice pitched to carry. “You don’t have to be.”

“You’re out of your mind, Jedi,” he calls back, hiding the sting of Ben’s words behind hard-edged amusement. _What does that even mean? And how would you know?_ “Besides, I thought I told you not to follow me.”

“Will you tell me your name this time?”

He laughs his way out of the building, certain Ben could track him based on the sound of it alone. That doesn’t stop him from laughing anyway.

-

Later, he’ll wish he’d stuck around to find out just why Ben was there. To assuage his curiosity if nothing else.

He’ll regret, too, that Ben hadn’t said anything about the datacard he’d handed over during their first run in. Does he know what’s on it? Or what it means? The Resistance hasn’t used the intel yet—may not use it—but for reasons he doesn’t find useful to explore, he’d… like to know that Ben knows. What it is. What he’s done.

Even though he’s not even sure Ben would _care_.

That’s a surprising development, and an inconvenient one.

He doesn’t for a second believe that Ben hadn’t done with it what he’d asked though.

And anyway, the galaxy’s a big place. There’s not a chance they’ll run into each other again. So it doesn’t matter. Really. Not in the slightest.

-

The day he learns of Starkiller Base’s destruction, he’s leaving the Mustafar system. Though empty-handed in his own search, a deep sense of satisfaction fills him anyway and he cannot call the venture a wash. When he reaches out with his senses, he confirms the truth for himself and pokes and probes at it with his mind. A hole has rent itself in the Force, fed the absence of lives and people he’d once known. He could not be more pleased.

When he scours the HoloNet for details, he finds the First Order hadn’t even had the chance to use it before it imploded in on itself. Official reports are calling it a catastrophic malfunction and the pundits are talking all over one another trying to decide what it means for the treaty.

If Hux survived, he’s having a really, really bad day.

For that, it’s almost worth the smile that tugs at his mouth.

_I hope you take note of this, Supreme Leader_.

_One day, it’ll be you_.

-

The next time he sees Ben, he’s certain it’s not an accident. In fact, Ben must’ve gone through a whole lot of trouble to get where he is, because the Jedi’s lounging on a bench outside the apartment he’d chosen at random on a planet he’d chosen at random in a system he’d chosen from a list he’d compiled of places that met strict standards that were supposed to eliminate this very possibility.

Next time, he’ll just have to work harder, he supposes. Though how much harder he can work is anyone’s guess. “You know,” he says, idle, conversational. Downright pleasant, if he’s being honest, despite the threat Ben presents to him just by being here. “I don’t appreciate strange men showing up on my doorstep. I’m not sure anyone does.” He looks Ben up and down, appreciates the sleek line of his clothing, dark gray instead of brown and taupe and tan, very different from the Jedi tunic and the robe and the ill-fitting leggings that go along with them. “But it’s nice to see you dressed for the occasion.”

Ben rolls his eyes and climbs to his feet, crosses the width of the hallway in a scant handful of steps. “I like to make a good impression,” he says, dry.

He doesn’t further compliment Ben, doesn’t let on that Ben’s got his full attention and not just because he looks good in dark colors. Turning away, he keys his unlock code into the panel next to his door. “Thanks for not breaking in.”

“I thought it was safer to wait.”

_It was_. He holds his arm out to stop Ben from stepping inside along with him, throws out his other arm to disengage his first through fourth security measure on the keypad just inside. He puts the fifth on standby.

Just in case.

Then, “After you,” he says, sweeping his hand across the clean, nearly empty space he calls home for the time being.

Ben steps past him, careful, eying the place with exactly as much suspicion as it deserves.

Without Ben standing in the way, the door slides shut.

He pays it no mind. Crossing his arms, he waits.

“May I sit?” Ben asks.

He nods.

“Are you going to sit?”

“No.” He does walk further into the room though. “But we can skip the part where you tell me how you got here and get right to explaining to me why you’re here at all.”

Ben bites his lip, thoughtful, and shrugs, entirely reasonable. “That’s fair.”

“I’m a fair kind of guy.”

Sighing, Ben leans forward, elbows on knees. His fingers lace together, forming a bridge on which Ben rests his chin. “You’re the reason my mother was able to blow up Starkiller Base,” he says, two fingers now steepling to press against his lips. “I know what you were.”

“You don’t know anything.” He wills his heart to stop beating so rapidly, pulls the Force around him with myriad, infinitesimal tendrils so Ben doesn’t catch on. “You have guesses.”

“Perhaps,” Ben concedes, “but do I really need to know _anything_ other than my guess is correct? Confirmation won’t make it any more or less true.”

His lips twitch, disdain and amusement at war inside of him. “You’re arrogant for a Jedi.”

“Master Luke would agree with you.” Ben searches his face, finds something or nothing at all. He doesn’t know Ben well enough to read the many expressions that cross his face. Not yet. Probably not ever. That would be a pity if he let it be. “You two would get along.”

“You’re having a hard time getting to the part where you explain why you’re here, aren’t you?”

Ben’s brow arches and he swallows, looking away, something briefly sparking in his eyes as he turns his head. Though he could prod Ben along, every nerve in him suggesting he do so, he gives Ben the room to formulate his response. “I left the Order.”

He frowns, expecting just about anything except that. Jedi are committed. They don’t just quit. Then again… Knights are committed. They’re not supposed to quit either. For that reason, and only that reason, he doesn’t berate Ben for this non-sequitur. Quite likely, it’s he who’s missing the key here.

“You all but destroyed the First Order’s chain of command while no one was looking. Whatever you’re doing…” Ben’s eyes light with a fire that he recognizes very, very well when he looks at himself too close in the mirror. It makes him want to look away and it makes him want to pull Ben close, two things he isn’t in the habit of wanting. Two things he shouldn’t want. From Ben. Or anyone. Ben continues, unaware, “I want in.”

“That’s not true,” he replies, because he’d stolen some plans and sent them in the right direction. Big deal. It’d been a selfish gesture, meant to hurt a handful of people. Not the kind of thing a Jedi—or former Jedi—should be interested in. Not when the cost had been so high and he hadn’t much cared. Not enough to not do it anyway.

“My uncle,” Ben says, “thinks we can defeat the First Order’s leadership through being better people than they are. My mother thinks that because Rebellion tactics worked the last time, they’ll do so again. My father—” Pausing, Ben scoffs. “—he goes where my mother and uncle tell him to.

“Their only real win in six years is because of you.” Ben’s gaze, steady, settles on him, warm. Welcoming. Understanding. Understanding most of all. “So I say again, I want in.”

And then it’s Ben’s turn to wait, because he isn’t entirely sure at first what to think. His mind flashes to his Knights, the people he’d hated, the people he’d left behind. The people who’d been to one another something that he’d never been to anyone and no one has ever been to him.

In the end, he cracks, because he sees a man who sees who he is and doesn’t flinch. He cracks because he wants to crack. For Ben. And for himself.

“Fine,” he says, throat tight while the rest of his body tenses with nerves that no application of the Force could settle. He hasn’t—done this. Letting someone in. Telling them about himself. Not in a long time.

Not ever really. For a moment, he’s not even sure where to start.

Then, he remembers:

“Go ahead and call me Finn.”

**Author's Note:**

> You can find me at [spookykingdomstarlight.tumblr.com](http://spookykingdomstarlight.tumblr.com/). Come say hi if you'd like!


End file.
